Monday 12 April 2010

Yesss ...

Sometimes you read a blogpost and it just makes you feel a tangible sense of relief:

Dawkins is no humble seeker after truth. He is a grandstanding arsehole.


See, I'm an atheist. But I really struggle reading the abuse militant atheists spew out, it's completely indistinguishable from Fred Phelps in tone and content. And in much the same way I respect the ownership of physical things by people who've worked for them, I am quite happy that people believe whatever the fuck they want as long as they don't force it upon me.

I think that's a perfectly libertarian point of view.

21 comments:

Kingbingo said...

Dawkins is a Statist

JuliaM said...

You sum up my own views, Obo. A plague on BOTH their houses, militant religious loons and militant, frothing atheists.

Uncle Marvo said...

I'm not an aetheist - I'm not cocky enough.

But I don't think that's a Libertarian point of view you're pointing out, I think it's human.

And you're right about Dawkins, he's actually just a cunt.

Oleuanna said...

But at least he is doing SOMETHING!! Unlike the rest of the fist shakers who will moan about his efforts and do nothing themselves to confront the issue.

Uncle Marvo said...

@Oleuanna:

What issue?

OldSlaughter said...

Agreed,

I took much joy in watching Dawkins over extend with his arrogance and get pulled back down by Cranmer.

I am an atheist and Dawkins et al bore the living shit out of me.

Oleuanna said...

@Uncle Marvo

That's a joke yes?

Uncle Marvo said...

@Oleuanna:

No. "Issue". What is the issue?

Dawkins is a self-publicising twat who is stating one point of view as fact. A certain Archbishop, on the other hand is doing the same, and should know better.

What "issue"?

John Demetriou said...

Agree with Obo, but the God Delusion was a terrific read and a much needed slap in the face to pious religious dogmatists.

Anonymous said...

Worse than a Statist, Dawkins is a Statheist. He feels moral condemnation that children are indoctrinated in church schools. His solution? Indoctrinate them in state schools. He feels indignation that God claims to have murdered thousands and has allowed the rape of thousands. His state has murdered hundreds of millions and allowed, advocated, encouraged and caused the rape of millions.

I can't stand his bigotted hypocrisy.

Anonymous said...

@Oleuanna: Doing something? If he was around when Socrates was and writing, then I could understand it. If he was around in the 16th century and writing, then I could call it doing something. But writing about Athetism when your country is over 50% non-religious, the arguments is already won, and your solution is more violence upon children... that's harldy doing anything.

JohnRS said...

I'm part of the "plague on both your houses" camp. Dawkins used to sound failry sensible - now he's just a twat. As for the various religious leaders - they really just need to get a life and do something useful with their threescore years and ten.

What I'd really like is for both sides in this example of megaphone diplomacy to just shut the fuck up and leave me alone to believe (or not) in anything (or nothing) as I choose.

I'd also like to see the doorstepping god botherers go away and never come back (unless they give me their address so I can mess up their day whenever I choose). Basically it's my life and my choice what I do with it. So just sod off and leave me to mess it up (or not) as I see fit.

Jill said...

As a non-scientific (ie a bit fick, like) atheist, I've always seen my atheism as as much an act of faith as any theist makes.

I'm all for Dawkins writing those hugely entertaining books and being as mean to god botherers as he likes in them. But he really doesn't make good TV at all, does he? Shrill. Manic. Shouty. Jackbooty.

Anonymous said...

From the original times article: "Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church."
Holding institutional bureacrats to account for their more appalling decisions seems pretty admirable to me. Bus poster campaigns promoting atheism may be fucking irritating but in this instance he has it right.

Oleuanna said...

@Uncle Marvo I think the possible issue is the church and quite frankly its parishioners, that don't seem to bothered about child molestation by their staff? Any other sector in society and the head of the Department including staff would be sacked with a criminal investigation taking place.

Now I don't care about Catholicism or Atheism it just so happens those are the binary oppositions in play.

@Anon I am not sure why holding somebody accountable for such an infestation promotes further criminal activity on children?

But ok...we don't arrest the Pope (though I don't know what's wrong with you guys, I am loving that idea)We ignore Mr horrible naughty mean Dawkins.

Hmmm? What now? A bit of legislation? Yeah that should sort it.

Uncle Marvo said...

@Oleuanna:

Oh, I see.

Sorry, I thought when you said Church you meant the established Church in this country, you know, England. Not the one established by the Romans out of guilt.

I don't recognise the Roman Catholics, just the Anglicans.

You must be Scottish or something.

Yes, arrest the Pope. Make a change from the election.

:-) << unnecessary smiley

Oleuanna said...

@Uncle Marvo

No I'm not Scottish ..you really should stop summing me up.

I'm all for rounding up priests and MPs and shipping them off to build a space station just right of Mars.

(No smile added)

Vladimir said...

Can't stand Dawkins. He seems to have convinced millions that science will someday disprove God's existence which is balls. Massive, intellectually lazy, science-as-a-faith, smarter-than-thou balls.

Dawkins fights religious intolerance by being equally intolerant, then justifies his behaviour by telling everyone that he knows for definite that he is right about everything. And he's surrounded by a creepy anti-God cult of "free thinking" conformists who cannot see that they've become what they claim to hate.

Militant atheists can piss off. Even if there was no pederasty in the Catholic church, they'd still be accusing the priests of "child abuse" because according to them, religion itself is child abuse. Except for atheism, of course.

Wat Dabney said...

You sounds pretty "militant" yourself there Vladimir. And yet, unlike Dawkins, you don't actually muster a logical and coherent argument. In fact, you just spout complete bollocks.

And I think you'll find that atheism is not a religion.

I've always had a lot of time for Dawkins. The Selfish Gene is a brilliant book, and he's produced many others which needed to be written, and he says a lot which needs to be said.

Dismissing him by comparing him to the theists he battles is just intellectual laziness; self-congratulatory smugness in place of any effort to establish a justifiable position. After all, a secular state is essentially no different to one where Sharia law operates, right?

The analogy would be someone who declines to differantiate between libertarians and the statists they so vehemently critisise; simply dismissing them with an air of automatic superiority as "shrill" and "militant."


"A plague on BOTH their houses."

Wanker.

Uncle Marvo said...

@Oleuanna:

We agree. At their own expense, though, obv.

Vladimir said...

@Wat Dabney. I'm an agnostic and I'm only militant about being told what to do and what to think.

If you want to believe in God, or believe Thereisnogod, then I really don't care, until you start telling me that you know for certain that you know you're definitely right and I'm certainly wrong.

But no chance of that happening, eh?